Tuesday, March 24, 2015

You Must Have Faith and Believe

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making it tougher for governors to deny man-made climate change. Starting next year, the agency will approve disaster preparedness funds only for states whose governors approve hazard mitigation plans that address climate change.

This may put several Republican governors who maintain the earth isn’t warming due to human activities, or prefer to do nothing about it, into a political bind. Their position may block their states’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA funds. Over the past five years, the agency has awarded an average $1 billion a year in grants to states and territories for taking steps to mitigate the effects of disasters.

“If a state has a climate denier governor that doesn’t want to accept a plan, that would risk mitigation work not getting done because of politics,” said Becky Hammer, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water program. “The governor would be increasing the risk to citizens in that state” because of his climate beliefs.

The policy doesn’t affect federal money for relief after a hurricane, flood or other disaster. Specifically, beginning in March 2016, states seeking preparedness money will have to assess how climate change threatens their communities. Governors will have to sign off on hazard mitigation plans. While some states, including New York, have already started incorporating climate risks in their plans, most haven’t because FEMA’s old 2008 guidelines didn’t require it.

I love how FEMA has farmed out the job of "enforcer" to NRDC.

If I were governor of a red state like, say, North Dakota, I would have a "climate change preparedness plan that starts with a few simple graphs like:

Showing that "Global Warming" has been negligible since the 1970s and that climate models currently grossly overestimate the rate at which it occurs and:

Temperatures in the continental US are currently within the range of historical values and:

Global sea level rise has continued at an approximately steady pace since the early 20th century, showing no recent acceleration due to CO2 induced warming, not that it would be a concern to us in North Dakota and:

Hurricane and tropical storm records show no systemic change in response to 20th century warming, (and this data can be extending to include extreme weather of all kinds) and:

Global drought records also show no significant increase in droughts world wide, and if anything a slight decline, welcome to agriculture.

I would then add that indeed, climate is always changing, and that it would be wise to prepare for climate changes, but the existing data don't provide much guidance as to whether they might be hot or cold, wet or dry, although deep time suggests that a descent into another ice age might occur at any time:

And then ask the Obama administration for money to build a "glacier wall" at the Canadian border to stop migration of Canucks out the way of the ice, and stop the ice at the border.